


Car Games

by editingatwork



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Family, Gen, Siblings, Spoilers for everything, car games, sam and dean acting like kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:38:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editingatwork/pseuds/editingatwork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever wondered how Sam and Dean killed time driving all over the country?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Car Games

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OctoberSpirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OctoberSpirit/gifts).



Sam and Dean’s first roadtrip, from Stanford to Jericho, is seven hours long and Dean is a horrible in-car conversationalist. It’s what comes of travelling with their father for so many years. As kids they’d had some leeway to goof around in the back seat, but as adults nothing but silence and pop quizzes on guns and mythology had entertained them on cross-country trips. Dean seems to think that’s the only way to keep things interesting, silence and pop quizzes, with the cassette deck humming classic rock in the background.

At first, Sam endures it. He’s being tested, blatantly, for proof he’s still up to snuff. Sam’s been away from the business for so long, Dean thinks he’s forgotten everything he ever learned. It’s fine for the first hour. For the second hour Sam pretends to sleep. By the third hour he really is asleep and wakes to Dean hitting him in the arm and telling him Hey, Sammy, run in the store and grab me something while I fill the tank, will ya?

But once they’re back in the car and Dean has finished his snack, it’s back to the tense quiet and occasional quizzing of Sam’s knowledge of breaking witch hexes.

Sam, instead of answering, starts playing the Alphabet Game out loud.

He’s up to E when Dean catches on.

He’s up to J when Dean’s competitive streak forces him to join in.

Dean’s still stuck on Q when Sam finishes.

Sam accepts Dean’s growled demand of best two out of three.

An hour and a half later, Sam wins at four out of seven. Dean, rather than play for an ill-advised best five out of nine, starts humming a tune that Sam swears is familiar but cannot for the life of him place.

After a minute, he has to give up guessing. Dean laughs at him and says, “Dude, _Metallica._ Phantom Traveler, it was on like five minutes ago. Pay attention.”

Sam gets him back with the theme song to Brady Bunch, and successfully identifies Sympathy for the Devil, which he thinks Dean only chose to poke fun. Sam’s knowledge of classic rock music isn’t nearly as deprived as Dean thinks.

They finally arrive at Jericho. They figure out the ghost, and then they gank the ghost, and then they take Sam home, where Sam finds Jessica dead, bleeding, and on fire on his bedroom ceiling. Feeling gutted and filled with more black rage than he knows what to do with, Sam joins Dean in the “family business.”

He can’t tell if Dean’s satisfaction at Sam joining him outweighs his sympathy for Sam’s loss. He gives up trying to work it out when he decides it doesn’t matter as long as they eventually kill the demon.

Their drive away from Stanford is coldly silent except for Dean’s music. A night spent at a roadside motel doesn’t heal Sam’s hurt but it does bring him around to talking, to helping Dean find their next spook.

It also makes it easier for him to say, “A,” when he sees it on a passing license plate while they drive to Colorado.

When Dean joins him a minute later, Sam feels a small weight inside him lift.

The number of games they have in their repertoire increases over time. Sometimes they wager stakes, but usually they don’t. It’s about passing the time and keeping the driver awake more than it is the competition. (Usually.) They bring back rules they used as kids, like reserving difficult letters for later use in the Alphabet Game, and not being allowed to use car-lots full of Volkswagen Beetles for punches in Punch Bug. There are no take-backs, ever.  Sam is not allowed to use obscure legal terms for 20 Questions, and Hold Your Breath While Driving Through a Tunnel is banned for eternity because of the time Dean held his breath until he almost passed out _while driving_.

They invent new games, like Rainbow Car, where they have to find a car for each color of the rainbow, in order. Yellow and purple cars are only to be used by the person who saw them first, a dispute which is resolved with rock-paper-scissors until Dean notices Sam always wins. Then it’s whoever wins a quick round of Ten Questions. They’re evenly matched at that.

Years pass. They get tougher, smarter, and better. They make friends and lose them. They lose each other and get each other back. They change. The car games change, too, but the ritual of them doesn’t.

There’s a year when the car games stop almost altogether because Bobby is a ghost riding in the backseat of the Impala. It’s an unspoken rule that car games aren’t played in front of anyone else, and they aren’t played _with_ anyone else, either.

Except Cas, who spends a lot of time in their backseat. He doesn’t get the point of car games, nor most of the rules. Dean spends a lot of time trying to draw him into playing them, anyway. When Cas does play, he usually wins at Name That Song because he’s been around for millennia and likes to hum campfire ditties from the Stone Age. He also can’t be made to understand that it’s unfair to do so.

They’ve been through a lot, Sam and Dean Winchester. They’ve _done_ a lot, too, changed the world in ways most people, gods, angels, and demons can’t dream of. They’ve made it through, somehow, through luck and stubbornness, both Winchester trademarks that seem undiminished by generation or time.

Now, two Trials and a conversation with Death later, Sam is back in the Impala next to Dean. He feels happier and more at peace than he has in a long time. He thinks it’s possible Dean might feel the same, or will, once they find Cas.

It comes as a surprise when Dean’s response to Sam casually saying, “A,” is tense silence.

Sam is up to G when Dean finally says, “Look, Sammy, maybe not right now, okay? You just got out of the hospital, you’re still recovering.”

Sam laughs. "Is the Alphabet Game too strenuous?”

Dean chuckles along. “No, but. I don’t know, man. I guess I’m not feeling it.” He pauses. “I keep thinking about Cas. We need to find him, make sure he’s okay. We need to figure things out.”

Sam is still confused, because they’ve kept up the tradition while ignoring worse situations in the past. But this is new, even for them. Maybe Dean still needs time to figure out where he wants to fit into this new world order. Make plans, decide on a strategy. A lot happened to Dean while Sam was asleep.

“Sure, man,” he says. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

“Thanks, Sammy.”

Dean turns up the radio.

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd, so all mistakes in spelling, grammar, continuity, etc. are mine.


End file.
